


Long Nights

by Martin Iceworth (Iceworth)



Series: The Gilded Cage [1]
Category: Vampire: The Masquerade, Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York (Video Game), Vampire: The Masquerade - Shadows of New York (Video Game)
Genre: (subtly) abusive relationship, Arturo being a creep, Blood Bond, COVID19, Dubcon mentions, F/M, Maddyverse, One-way blood bond relationship, Shadows of New York spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:48:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26556127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iceworth/pseuds/Martin%20Iceworth
Summary: It was either kill her or use her. Thomas Arturo elected to use her. For what, Olivia still has no idea -- she's spent the majority of her unlife shut up in Arturo's haven, with nothing more than his books and his ghouls to keep her entertained. As the New York pandemic kicks in to full gear outside of her gilded cage, Olivia finds a conversation with one of the ghouls gives her a new perspective on the megalomaniac she's now stuck with indefinitely.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Thomas Arturo
Series: The Gilded Cage [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1931305
Comments: 5
Kudos: 13





	Long Nights

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the "good" ending of SoNY.
> 
> Please keep in mind that though it's very subtle, this is still an abusive relationship. It's a one-way blood bond, of course it's abusive. And of course, with one-way blood bonds come consent issues. This fic has mentions of dubcon in it. Do not read if these issues are triggering to you.
> 
> Special thanks to @Orodrethsgeek from Tumblr for their beta work!! :D

Olivia stood at the southern window overlooking Brooklyn, rocking back and forth on flat-heeled shoes. Her glazed-over eyes didn’t register the water far ahead of her, or the Statue of Liberty, or the sea of lights that outshone a barren sky. Instead, they vaguely followed the faintest of streaks that the window washers had left the afternoon before. From the kitchen she heard the spray of a bottle of cleaning fluid and the squeak of a wiped-down stovetop, accompanied by a man’s voice, “I said I’ll do the cushions in a minute!”

The door of the master bedroom opened and closed. In the reflection in the window, Olivia made out the faintest movement from a corridor as Alex, one of the ghouls, dropped a pile of sheets on the floor. “Luke, you said that three hours ago!”

“Dad, the kitchen’s dusty!”

“Just do the cushions, dammit, I’ll fix up the kitchen once I’ve stuck this in the laundry.”

Maybe tonight would be the night Qadir finally busted in and dragged her out. Maybe he’d bring the whole coterie. There had to be a reason he was taking so long to rescue her, right?

_ Ha.  _

If only.

The New York streets below were completely empty, aside from the occasional glittering of ambulance lights. They’d been almost deserted when Olivia rose that night, when Thomas had flitted out the door. It was as if New York’s veins and arteries had drained over the last week.

She heard footsteps tap against spotless white tiles, and then brush against cream carpet. “Why is it so empty down there?” she said.

“Pandemic,” said Lucas’s voice.

“It’s just the flu,” Alex called from the kitchen.

“You hear those sirens, right?”

“It’s a really bad flu!”

“Dad.” Olivia heard Lucas unzip a couch cushion, watched his reflection free it from the cover and wrestle it into new clothes. “The flu comes every year. It doesn’t cause this.”

Spring was supposed to be here, and yet the world was colder. Olivia sighed, and hugged herself. Rocked more on her feet. She supposed she could read another book, but she was so fed up with books…

“You feeling alright, Olivia?” said Lucas.

She glanced away from the wide windows to see him shove another cushion into its new home. He looked like a kid, only twenty five when turned but young for his age even then, with owlish eyes and boyish hair a bit like Arturo’s minus the pretentiousness. His eyes were a vivid green, his hair the kind of blond that gave white supremacists wet dreams.

“Still bored?” he said.

“Never realised what hot shit Arturo was,” said Olivia. “I swear half the books he has that were published after the ‘90s mention his name.”

“If it’s published after 2010,” said Lucas, bending over another cushion, “they all mention his name.”

“Yup. And if I have to read another one I might throw myself out of the window,” said Olivia. “I’m so fucking sick of architecture and design.”

“Please don’t do that, he’ll kill me,” said Lucas, casually enough that an idiot might have thought he was joking.

“Even if I’m nice enough to leave a suicide note asking him to spare you as my final wish?”

“Yeah, no, that’ll just encourage him.”

“Touche.”

“Seriously, though,” said Lucas, stuffing the old cushion covers under his arm and tossing the last red pillow on the couch. “Are you okay?” He frowned. “You’re not actually going to off yourself, are you?”

Maybe he was young enough there was real concern there, but she didn’t doubt he’d go running off to Arturo if she said the wrong thing. Ghouls would be ghouls. “Nah. Just a shitty joke. ‘Sides, the blood bond would kick in if I tried something I knew he wouldn’t like.”

“Yeah, it’s fucked up how it works, isn’t it?” Lucas flopped back onto the couch and put his feet up onto the glass coffee table. Olivia could see the reflection of every groove on the bottom of his spotless shoes. “When he first ghouled Dad, he went through a full-on gay crisis.”

“I heard that,” called a voice from the kitchen, but not angrily.

“Yeah, I can see why.” Her lip curled in a wry, but humourless smile. “It’s kind of really gay to have your mouth that close to another man’s.”

“Heard that too!”

“Like,” Lucas cocked his head, “this was the mid 90s. He was straight as an arrow and everyone hated gay people again. Or had hated gay people all along. And here he was, basically nutting himself every time another man sucked on his neck.”

“ _ Lucas _ ! If you’re not done with those couch cushions — “

“I’m doing them, I’m doing them!” said Lucas, sitting in a sea of already-done cushions. He caught Olivia’s eye and put a finger over his lips, making her laugh. “But yeah, the ghoul blood bond thing freaked him out. So when it was my turn dad was like, ‘Look, don’t panic if you have a gay awakening. Vampires just have that effect on people. Instead of being a straight man, you’ll be a straight man with one exception.’ And I was like, ‘Dad, it’s 2015, I’m a millennial, I don’t give a shit.’ Anyway, joke’s on Dad, I didn’t have a gay awakening. One, I’m asexual; two, even if I wasn’t it’d’ve been a gay sleepening.”

Olivia turned away from the window, giving him her full attention. “What do you mean?”

“I black out every time Master Arturo needs a snack. No homo for me. Shame, it sounds kinda fun.”

“Damn,” said Olivia. “I think people just react differently to being fed on.”

“Yeah.” Lucas patted the cushion covers under his arm and rocked to his feet. “Anyway, I should stick these covers in the laundry — “

“Wait.” Olivia held out a hand. “I wanted to ask you something. Um. If you’re not in a hurry, that is.”

“He’s dawdled enough!” said Alex. He’d abandoned the kitchen for the corridor that led to the laundry, his voice growing a little quieter with each word as he made for the laundry room.

“The master shouldn’t be back until four or so, and it’s, uhhh,” Lucas made a grand flourishing gesture as he checked his watch. “Four! … to twelve. Hit me.”

“You’ve been with him for five years now, haven’t you?”

“Yup.” Lucas flashed a charming smile. “Doesn’t mean I know shit about him though, he doesn’t let the staff know what’s going on inside his head.”

“He doesn’t let me know either.” Olivia moved to sit on the couch, tangling her fingers together. “That’s not a ghoul thing, it’s an Arturo thing. But you have been around him, and your dad’s been around him even longer. So you must’ve picked some things up.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Why does he keep me around?” Olivia frowned at him.

Lucas raised his eyebrows as if to say,  _ really? _

“Look,” said Olivia. “When I was working under Sophie I was really bad at discretion. If you can’t be discreet, you’re useless to whoever you’re serving — and I had the fucking Second Inquisition on me because people had caught me feeding. Kaiser knew where I was all the time. Adelaide Davis was casually playing bodyguard and I barely knew she was there.”

“Who the fuck are Kaiser and Adelaide?” Lucas adjusted his stance, swaying a little in idleness.

“Other vampires. Doesn’t matter. Think of them as professional stalkers.” Olivia waved a hand. “The point is, there’s a reason Arturo keeps me up here. It’s because he can’t set me loose because I’d be shit at whatever he wanted me to do and shit at pretending he doesn’t have a sway over me. There’s vampires out there with decades,  _ centuries  _ of experience of lying, acting, and sneaking around. I can’t fool them. Not for a second. That makes me a liability to him. It’s not like I’m his childe, I have to pretend I’m not bound to him.” She sighed, leaned back into the couch, and turned her palms up. “So why keep me around? Why didn’t he just kill me? I’m useless here, sitting around all day doing nothing, bored out of my mind. Is he keeping me around for a… later plan, or… is he… what?”

Lucas was staring at her as if trying not to laugh.

“What?” 

“Sorry. I just.” He covered his mouth, chuckling. “God. Are you really that dense?”

“ _ What? _ !”

“Look, let’s just say he…” Lucas made a vague gesture, “enjoys…” he drew out the silence for a moment. “… the  _ company _ . Yes, let’s go with that.”

Olivia stared at him.

He grinned at her.

She said, “You realise it was months before we had sex, right?”

“Kinda hard not to,” said Lucas. “It’s like he thinks ghouls are furniture instead of people.” He smirked at Olivia. It wasn’t entirely mirthful.

Oh, god. Somehow she always forgot that in the moment. Fuck the blood bond, it always made her do the stupidest shit she wouldn’t be caught dead doing while sober — 

“Okay, okay, but like,” said Olivia, shoving down her embarrassment, “that’s not it.”

“Yeah, it is — “ Lucas’s grin could only be described as shit eating.

“Shut up and let me finish. That’s not it.” She draped one knee over the other, crossed her arms and glared at him. “He fed me out of his wrist for a good four months before he let me feed from his neck and it was only then that it started… you know…” God, what was she, a fifteen-year-old talking about her first time? She was in her thirties, for fuck’s sake, and sleeping with the most powerful man in New York. Who also happened to be her captor.

“Only then that he started fucking you,” said Lucas, as tactful as ever.

Olivia winced. “I hate you.”

Lucas blew a kiss. “Look,” he said. “I won’t pretend he has the warm fuzzies for you. Obviously, he doesn’t, he’s way too self-absorbed. But he is a vampire. I know you don’t know much about other vampires yet, and I’m on a need to know basis, but from what the other ghouls have said I get the strong feeling that it’s a lonely experience. You’re always stabbing backs or waiting for backs to be stabbed. How often would vampires actually get close to someone? Truly, sincerely close?” He wrinkled his nose. “How often do they get a fucking  _ hug _ ?”

Olivia snorted. “We do not have that kind of relationship.”

“No, you don’t,” said Lucas. “You’re not his equal and you know it, and he’s not the type to admit he needs a hug unless he’s really, really drunk. But.” He looked at her meaningfully. “You’re the closest he can get to it.”

Olivia blinked.

“He’s so socially fucking inept and paranoid he is completely emotionally incapable of forming a healthy, mutual relationship.” Lucas shifted the covers and crossed his arms over them. “From what I’ve heard from other ghouls, that’s basically what most vampires are like. It’s how they survive. They get attached to another vampire, they inevitably get betrayed and die, so they don’t let themselves get compromised. Sure, a lot of them could sleep with humans and get affection from them, but a lot of them view that as akin to bestiality. Sure, dogs are great, but you don’t fuck them. So instead he binds a Fledgling to him and, oh,  _ hey _ , you’re the most harmless vampire he’s ever met  _ because  _ you’re a Fledgling,  _ because  _ you’re shit at the things you said you’re shit at, and you’re also not annoying so that’s another plus. Why  _ not  _ indulge himself a little? It means that no matter what happens, even if you’re able to turn on him one day — you can’t hurt him. Think of him like a forty-year-old incel preying on an eighteen-year-old girl because she’s too young to notice the red flags and he’s too immature to have a functional, mutually trusting relationship. Only, you’re not young, you just don’t have the skills to hurt him in ways more experienced vampires can. And as long as you’re shut up here, you can’t learn them.”

Silence.

Olivia stared at her hands. She bent and straightened her fingers, watching the creases on the inside of the joints open and close with the movement. “You know him better than you think.”

Lucas shrugged. “Maybe I do — “

The front door beeped. 

Both of them tensed.

“Did Dad go out?” said Lucas. “I didn’t hear him — “

“Neither did I.”

“Far too early to be the master — “

The door slammed, forcefully enough to make the windows shake.

Lucas looked to Olivia, confused.

“Has he ever done that before?” Olivia murmured to him.

Lucas shook his head. “I’ll let you take one for the team here and make myself scarce. Godspeed, you poor fuck.” He saluted Olivia and left before he finished the gesture.

Moving back to the window and hugging herself, Olivia didn’t have the heart to tell him that Arturo had almost certainly heard that.

Sometimes Thomas Arturo came home in one of his moods. She hated not being able to help him, but his moods went up and down as a Toreador’s was bound to, and she knew by now to give him the space he needed to mull over it and brainstorm counter attacks against whoever it was that had annoyed him. He wasn’t an extrovert, by any means, despite the bubbly persona he put on at Elysium. The man needed peace and quiet to hear his own thoughts and he was prone to brooding.

He’d never slammed doors before. 

She watched him storm into the living room through the reflection in the windows, a dark scowl marring his features. He was still in the fancy outfit that he’d worn when he’d flitted off to Elysium, his steps lighter than usual, but all that was gone now, replaced with clenched fists and deep lines on his brow.

“Alexander!” He threw himself into one of the white leather couches. “Where are you? My drink. Now. The good stuff, if you please.”

“Here, sir.” That was Alex in the window now, bringing in some bottled blood. Thomas liked his routines.

“About fucking time. Why wasn’t it ready?”

“Apologies, sir.”  _ Because it’s only midnight, _ she could practically hear Alex thinking,  _ and you never want your drink at this time of night _ . “It won’t happen again.”

She switched her attention back to the southern horizon, letting their figures go out of focus. The tray clanked as Alex put it down on the coffee table — how fast he must have moved to get it ready with no notice! — and in the shadow of the building, another ambulance began its distant scream across empty streets.

The blood bond hazed over her mind. The more rational part of her brain knew that some people just needed to be angry in silent isolation, but the blood-crazed part that grew louder in his presence said _ useless, useless, so useless, why does he even keep you around if you can’t even comfort him? _

From the couch, Thomas sighed into his glass of blood. In the glass, Olivia watched Alex hesitate. He looked more like Lucas’s older brother than his father, without a single grey hair on his head, and no lines under his eyes.

“Sir,” said Alex, very carefully. “Is there anything else you need?”

Thomas sucked in an irritated breath through his teeth. Alex flinched.

But then Thomas said, calmly, “No. That will be all.” He returned the half-empty glass to its tray. “Go.”

Alex bowed and departed.

Olivia relaxed. She released a breath she didn’t realise she’d been holding. Good. The gears in his head were turning already. The bad mood wouldn’t last long. He’d figure out how to rip the carpet out from under the feet of whoever had pissed him off and then he’d be cheerful again. Before the next setback came, anyway.

She turned her head to look at him. He sat hunched over on the couch, elbow on his knee, chin on his folded knuckles. She couldn’t see his face from this angle, only that unruly mop of dark hair, but she could imagine what it looked like. The lines of his scowl would surely be slowly softening into a frown as his mind worked and eased out the tangle that had been made in his puppet strings.

“Hm,” he said, and then nothing more.

Long minutes passed. Olivia looked down at her hands, and saw her thumbs were rubbing together. She stilled them. Normally she’d wait for him to make some kind of indication her company was welcome, but if what Lucas had said earlier was true, then perhaps…

She turned to the couch. He hadn’t moved. She hesitated, then took a step onto the plush cream carpet. He gave no indication he sensed her or heard her movements, but she knew he had; the man was impossible to sneak up on and could hear a mouse tiptoe over shagpile three blocks away. Another step. Another.

She gingerly lowered herself onto the edge of the couch. Close enough that he knew she was there; far enough to respect his space. Knees together, hands folded in her lap. A good little office drone, a good little Ventrue, a good little pet. That’s what he called her, sometimes. His pet. Here, up close to him, his presence — like some kind of aura — sent tingles through her that she longed for when he was gone. The dark curls of his hair looked more beautiful from close up. If she had a heartbeat, it would be going wild in her chest. If she had breath, it would be captured in her throat.

She hesitated, again, in the silence of his thinking. Sometimes she wasn’t sure if she was a prisoner or not. Was she really a prisoner if she wanted to stay? Sure, he fed her his blood often — but was she still blood bound if she didn’t fight it? Maybe she just didn’t try hard enough. Most of the time, she didn’t want to. If she was a victim at his mercy, wouldn’t she want to fight it?

She licked her lips. Bit her lower one. From here, she could see that his facial expression was somewhere between that scowl and that frown of his. The anger was still there; blunted, but present.

She still said, anyway, “What happened?”

Her voice wavered and shook.

He didn’t answer, so she didn’t push it. It wasn’t like he ever talked, anyway — not truly  _ talked _ . She turned her knees slightly away from him, twisted so she stared straight ahead at the large painting on the wall ahead of them. It looked like a Monet, a distant memory of sunshine and spring grass. Knowing him, it might even have been an original.

“Lasombra.”

She jumped. She blinked at him. He hadn’t moved, but that had been his voice, and she fought a smile. He’d talked to her. He’d  _ talked  _ to her! Oh, he spoke to her all the time, sometimes he  _ never shut up _ , but he’d confided in her!

Maybe this meant that soon he’d confide in her some more? That maybe he’d trust her to be of more comfort to him? That he thought she was capable of helping him?

… What to say next? Did she dare to repeat her question? Should she say,  _ how can I help? _ Maybe that would only annoy him. What help could she give?

She shuffled closer. Slowly. Carefully. When he didn’t pull away, didn’t aim a scowl at her, she relaxed. She put an arm around his shoulders. He didn’t protest. She slid her hand up his shoulder and into his hair. Gently urged his head to rest on her shoulder. Scritched his scalp above the ear.

He gave a long sigh. When she glanced down at his face, he’d shut his eyes. The scowl was gone. He looked like a mortal man in his mid thirties, now, not a vampire who was almost eighty. Was that young or old for their kind? She didn’t know. How could she? Her sire was long gone, her patron dead. There was nobody left to teach her. Qadir had never come. Her coterie had never come.

She had no one but Arturo.

Quietly, with her right hand, she pinched the bridge of his glasses, slid them off his nose, and folded them as the fingers of her left kept up their ministrations. If she had both hands at her disposal, she’d clean them for him. He was so fastidious about that, but he liked how well she did it.

“What did the Lasombra do?” She placed his glasses on her knee, then plunged the fingers of her right hand into his hair.

“The job we told her to do,” he growled. “Not the job we  _ wanted  _ her to do.” He snorted. “She was supposed to help cover something up, not blow it wide open, grab us by the balls and twist. Dammit. And I was the one who’d nudged her onto the board to begin with. Fucking hell.”

She winced.

“And she’s a childe, no less,” he said. “Barely younger than you, all but an abandoned fledgling, and now she’s the Primogen of an entire clan. At least we secured and put down her pet. I’ll have Panhard drain it, bottle it up, give it to her next time she’s at Elysium. I want to see the look on her face when Qadir tells her the vintage.”

Nervousness flickered in Olivia. If this Lasombra wanted tit for tat…

“As for what I’ll do with her...” Thomas seemed unconcerned at the possibility, if he even considered it. “There’s Kaiser… she  _ did  _ brutalise him… he’ll want his revenge. Maybe I won’t even need to do anything. He’ll take care of it by himself. No games, just tie her down on a hill facing east and let the sun do the rest. She rose high, but she did so clumsily and with a lot of enemies. She won’t stay up in her tree. He’ll claw her down.”

She did  _ what  _ to Kaiser? “Sometimes the best execution to witness is when someone hangs themselves,” said Olivia, suppressing her curiosity. This was the most he’d spoken about his activities since she’d been shut away up here; she wasn’t going to push her luck.

That earned her a chuckle. She couldn’t help the smile that came over her. It was so rare to hear him laugh. A real laugh, not the fake, shrill tittering from Elysium. “Her nights were numbered even before she pulled this stunt,” he said. “She won’t last. She won’t last long at all.” He sighed in pleasure at the attention and leaned into her hands. “There’s no need to put myself at risk. Kaiser will take care of all of it. She’s doing a Callihan and she doesn’t even realise it.”

“I’m sorry, Thomas, but…” Olivia waited a moment. When he didn’t say anything, didn’t tut at her nosiness, she continued, “Doing a Callihan?”

“Oh, Callihan got ballsy before she did, confronted us all in much the same way,” said Thomas. “The difference is that he didn’t survive it. Think the Ides of March, but with sunlight instead of knives.”

“Ah,” said Olivia. “Who was Brutus, in this case?”

“Panhard. Naturally.”

“Right, I forgot about that.”

“Mmmm. He was  _ devastated _ .” He snickered. “When I saw the look on his face when he realised Panhard was going to introduce him to the sun, it suddenly made me understand why you get that puppy dog look when I snap at you. And of course, it was my subtle suggestion she be the one to do it. You think I’d have let him die without my permission? I’m the real Prince here, no one dies unless I will it.”

“What will you do when the Lasombra’s dead?”

“Tsk tsk, nosy,” he said, but there was playfulness in his tone, not accusation or admonishment. “That’s my little secret, not one you’re entitled to. I’m no canary, don’t think I’ll make a habit of singing my movements to you, dear one.” 

He sprung to his feet like a jack-in-the-box, leaving her arms empty. She bit back a sound of disappointment. He glanced at his watch. “Ah, blast it, should’ve worn the analog. Got too close to the damn Lasombra. And now she’s a Primogen, there’s no digital watches in Elysium any more. Not if you want them to live. I hope she fried Kaiser’s limo when she got in it, although the beating she gave him is the next best thing.”

“Are you going to tell me what she did to Kaiser?” She  _ liked _ Kaiser, but the thought of him getting his ass handed to him was a satisfying one.

Then she saw the look on Thomas’s face.

Her grin faded.

He’d suddenly gained a very far away look. The cheerful smile on his face slowly faded in front of her eyes.

“Oh,” he breathed. “That bitch. That clever,  _ clever  _ bitch. I can’t believe I fell for it.”

He turned his dead watch over in his hands. “Fell for it.” His thumb brushed over the display. “Every single one of us. Caught so off-guard that when she presented us a hole in her story like a silver platter, we completely missed it… oh, clever girl. Clever, clever girl. But not clever enough…”

“Thomas?” said Olivia, carefully.

The smile Thomas gave her then could only be described as predatory, and right then, Olivia knew the Lasombra wasn’t going to live long at all. “See this?” He turned his watch to her. An expensive digital watch he wore sometimes — he tended to prefer the analog for the old-timey aesthetic, but this was his only digital watch, a favourite the colour of moonlight. Right now, the display was empty. “What did Langley teach you about the Lasombra?”

Olivia racked her brain. “I can’t remember Sophie mentioning them much.”

“Mirrors don’t show their reflection,” said Thomas, turning the watch to look at it again with a dark expression. The kind that sent shivers down Olivia’s spine — and not the good kind. “Electronics go on the fritz or fry if they touch them, or sometimes even just get too close. Batteries drain, displays distort, or sometimes they spark and die.” He curled the watch into his fist. “Clever girl. She knew that if she caught us off-guard enough we would forget this. The Camarilla and the Lasombra are barely more than strangers, and we are so unused to their ways… but that’s no excuse for incompetence.” He turned to her, but he was looking past her, not at her. “The information in Kaiser’s limo is almost entirely digital — displays, computers, smartphones. How could she have possibly seen anything, except perhaps at a distance? Even then, it’d have to be on the display right  _ then _ . She touches a mouse, the computer won’t register it. She touches a keyboard, it short circuits. The monitors? Lean too close and they’d turn into static song. She never dug around in his network, she just put analog pieces together from what she’d already learned and pretended she had evidence that she never saw. Once Aisling bought it, the rest of us did too. Those ten reports? Almost certainly don’t exist -- unless she wrote them out by hand, each and every one.

“But, oh, she’s not clever enough. She should have known we’d remember her clan weakness eventually, see the holes instead of the net. The moment our minds stopped racing, the moment our rage calmed… we’d know.  _ I know _ . And I know how to get her address.” He slipped the watch into a pocket. “She won’t see the week out, I don’t think. I have a very angry Nosferatu to call. I might give him a nudge after all. I think it’s time for another round of the Ides of March, hmm?” Then he brightened, again. “What time is it, Livya?”

She loved it when he called her that. “Half past twelve at the latest, probably earlier.”

“Hmm.” His knuckles brushed her knee as he picked up his glasses. “It’s not late, and I still have much to do. I have to figure out how to deal with the Lasombra in Chicago, decide if they’re going to be a threat…”

“Thomas.” She wasn’t sure why she had the courage to push her luck tonight, and now was probably the worst possible time... “I — “

“Mmm?” He took a microfiber cloth from a pocket and rubbed a blue lens with it. “What is it?”

“I, uh — “

“Spit it out, I don’t have all night.”

“I’m bored,” Olivia blurted out. “Really bored in here.”

He tsked. She squirmed. “You’re not leaving.” Thomas turned his attention on to the other lens. “You’re a good pet, so obedient, but you can’t cover your tracks to save either of us, and if you ever learn then, well, what’s the point of having Adelaide play bodyguard? I’d be a fool to let you out of your cage, no matter how endearing I find you.”

Aww. He thought she was endearing? Wait. Fuck. She couldn’t let that distract her. “I know, but — “

“Arrange something with Alexander, I’ll give you both free rein within reason.” Thomas put on his glasses. “No going outside, no visitors and no changes to the haven. But it’s not like we don’t have the budget. Can’t have you chewing the furniture now, can we?” He gave her a dazzling smile, and she glowed back at him. “Good night, Livya. I’ll see you before the dawn.”

“Good night, Thomas,” she said, as he left. She smiled down at her fingers. As he passed Alex on the way out she heard him say something, but it was a bit fuzzy in her haze.

This time when the front door closed, it only clicked. She heard the distant beep of an elevator. The smile still didn’t leave her face.

A few minutes later, Lucas half-emerged from behind a wall. “Is he gone?”

“Yep.” Olivia must have had a really stupid grin on her face, but right now she didn’t care.

“Damn, you always act fucked when he’s been by,” said Lucas. “Worse than us.”

“He doesn’t ration her meals.” Alex came in past Lucas, casually grabbing his son by the scruff of his shirt and dragging him out from behind the corner before he let go. He bent to pick up the tray with the half-full glass. “We only get fed once a month. If we got to drink his vitae at least twice a week we’d be stupid around him too. Anyway, Ms Martin, do you know what he was jabbering on about as he left this evening? I couldn’t quite catch what he was saying because he was out of the door before he’d even finished.”

“He said you can buy me stuff with his money so I’m not bored out of my wits!” Olivia clapped her hands together. “He said it’s fine as long as you’re not unreasonable.”

“Ugh, unreasonable depends on his mood.” Alex frowned.

“Yeah, but,” Lucas offered, “he’s stupid rich, so that threshold is pretty high. It might hit half a million on the budget before he defines it as ‘unreasonable’ on a bad day. And anyway I was uh — “ Lucas waved something rectangular in the air. “So I brought this here today for when I finished my work and I think you should borrow it.”

“I told you not to bring that here,” said Alex. “This is your workplace, not somewhere you can slack off.”

“Well, Livvie said she was bored — “

“Ms Martin,” said Alex.

“Olivia is fine, I’ve told you.” Olivia squinted at the object Lucas was holding.

“ _ Ms Martin _ in case Master Arturo’s keeping an eye on us.” Alex gently but firmly shoved at Lucas’s shoulder. “You’ve never thought he might keep bugs or cameras in his own haven, Luke?”

“Is that a Nintendo Switch?” said Olivia, brightening.

“He doesn’t, or he’d be mad at me for far more than that.” Lucas pushed the rectangle into Olivia’s hands. “Yes, it’s a Nintendo Switch.” Lucas shrugged and smiled sheepishly at Olivia. “I was actually looking around at online stores to see if maybe Dad and I could order you one and talk the Master into paying for it, but uh, they’re all sold out. Like. Everywhere. ‘Cause of the plague.”

“Oh, god. Thanks for reminding me we’re out of toilet paper at home.”

“Anyway if the Master’s going to let us get you your own stuff, then you’ll have your own eventually, but you can borrow that until they’re back in stock,” said Lucas. “If you think stuff is batshit from up here, you should see what it’s like at the grocery stores right now.”

“No fucking toilet paper,” Alex griped. “All because of the fucking flu. The hell is toilet paper going to do? I’m going to have to beg our neighbour to spare us a couple of rolls and I know for sure that bitch has eight dozen! I saw her take them in last week!”

“Animal Crossing,” Olivia breathed, turning the Switch on. “You’ve got Animal Crossing. God, I haven’t played that in years. And it’s a new one, too!”

“Only released this week!” said Lucas brightly.

“ — eight dozen rolls. A family of four runs through, what, one roll a day? She lives by herself so that’s one roll every four-ish days— “

“Thank you, Lucas.” Olivia rose to throw her arms around his shoulders and hug the ghoul tightly. “Thank you so much!”

“And if you need a drink before you settle in, well, he’s here.” Lucas jabbed a thumb in the direction of the still-ranting Alex.

“That can’t be right, but let’s just pretend it is. So multiply eight dozen by four, and that’s how many days she’d have before she — “ Alex looked at his son. “Hey, no, I’m anaemic again. I fed her last night. It’s your turn now.”

“I make her throw up, why do you always conveniently forget that? Are you senile or something? You were like thirty when you were ghouled!”

“Right, it’s Evan I take turns with. And I was twenty nine. Ugh. Fine. Ms Martin, do you — “

“I’m fine for tonight, Alex,” said Olivia, smiling at him. “Thank you both. Perhaps you could start arranging for a Netflix account? And a tablet I can watch it on?”

“I’ll get on it, Ms Martin.” Alex chuckled. “You have a good night. Lucas, did you put those couch cushion covers in the — “

“Yes, they’re in the laundry, in the dry cleaning pile.”

“Pile? Things that should be dry cleaned shouldn’t be left in a pile!”

“It’s couch cushion covers, the fuck am I supposed to do, put them on a hanger?!”

Listening to the two ghouls bickering, Olivia smiled. She snuggled into one of the newly changed cushions as the glow of the Switch illuminated her face.

Maybe things would get a little less dull in her gilded cage after all.


End file.
